From page 7 of this thread:

Mike wrote:

QUOTE:
Perhaps procreation is immoral, because you are creating a being who is destined to suffer. In essence you are bringing a being into suffering.

This is a key component to my view that procreating is immoral. On the VHEMT e-mail distribution list, we recently had the following discussions.

First, Les (I still don't think that's his real name, but I'm not sure) posted in part,

"Fefe may be right that it's too late to avoid catastrophic results of our redundant fecundity. It could be argued that, even if it's not too late yet, humanity will never do what is needed to prevent disaster until it is too late.

With this world view, one should conclude that bringing another of us into existence constitutes a crime against that person. This conclusion usually isn't included in the fatalistic forecast."

Additionally, in a separate discussion, someone made this observation:

"It is interesting to note the impact on relationships from the breeding decision, and the impact of our socialization on the breeding decision.

A woman is likely going to throw away a ten-year relationship because the man refuses to give her a baby.

Never mind that they both are too old to give a child the energy it needs, never mind her health is poor, never mind they have no support network to help raise a child, never mind the economy, never mind the multiple serious diseases in her gene pool...never mind what is best for a new soul... SOCIETY SAYS YOU WILL ALWAYS BE LESS UNTIL YOU HAVE A CHILD...have a child in the illusion it will make her her her life better.

Reality: the child will likely have birth defects and/or develop serious chronic diseases as an adult. The child likely will not get all that it needs, and will grow to resent her, and inherit a troubled world."

My response was bittersweet, but mostly positive, I suppose:

"THANK YOU! I've been trying to tell that to my mother for 30 years and I could never quite get the words out right. Now she doesn't have to be so completely confused and mystified as to the source of my resentment.

This point you've made also illustrates the uphill battle VHEMT is facing in general. Just as animal exploitation is so deeply ingrained and entrenched in the collective psyche of society on the whole, so is the institution of human breeding.

Most people are too inept to perceive the immorality and callousness of the cruelty and damage we inflict on nature and each other. The vast majority are all too comfortable in their obliviousness, and that in and of itself is a heinous, unforgivable crime. We truly are a plague of the worst proportions."

So therefore, to go back to some of the issues we were discussing back in the first 8-10 pages of this thread, existence itself is not necessarily immoral. However, we don't exist in a vacuum, and in matters of life and death, reality has to take priority over theoretical idealism. It is my view that for us to exist in the state in which we exist is immoral, and it is a crime against both the world and the newly created individual for us to procreate, given the dire circumstances of the world as we know it.